|
Post by Zathras on Nov 1, 2010 20:14:38 GMT -5
Well ... I guess they must be doing something right; they're getting lots of publicity. I was catching up at AfterElton again, and came across this post. He links to an article over at Dramabeans. Apparently the show was forced to cut some dialog where the guys voiced their feelings for each other in a church setting. Ugh.
|
|
|
Post by blueocean80 on Dec 17, 2010 16:58:11 GMT -5
Hi guys! Bonobochick, who's a friend of mine, told me to post here but I keep forgetting. Meh. Sorry. So, first off, I'm a kdrama addict and I watch many, maaaany a year. So, if you have any questions about Korean traditions or cultural aspects (say, kinship terms) or kdramas/movies clichés (there are many), feel free to ask. I'm not Korean, but I think I know enough to answer many of your questions. I'm also studying Korean so I may be able to answer questions about the language itself, may being the keyword here since I still consider myself a newbie. Second, I won't dwell (much) on why I love the storyline between Kyung-soo and Tae-sub in this message (I'm here to share some news, mostly) because 1)isn't it obvious? They are soooo cute 2)you never hear the end of it. ;D I just wanted to say that it is a groundbreaking series for South Korea. While the other storylines of LiB are not controversial (they're nice, though), this one totally is and it is such a huge step forward for SK where homophobia and intolerance are still big problems: it's the first time that relationship between two guys is portrayed in a family drama that used to air on weekends during primetime on national tv. And? The fact KS and TS got as much screentime as the other couples was telling as well. Their relationship was also portrayed in a way that gave away its nature: not only it was a love story, but tptb strongly implied it wasn't a platonic one. That, right there, was yet another thing that blew my mind. To see TS and KS in bed together although yes, never in the act, was truly amazing. Yes, we never got a kiss onscreen or the famous wedding (ahh, when the news about the Church refusing to have the crew film that particular scene broke out there was chaos, let me tell you), but their storyline was so powerful and touching that I was satisfied. I can't say I never said, "pity, I wanted to see them kissing!" but I'm happy I still got to see this wonderful story. And you know what? Even though I've watched countless LGBQT movies/shows before, Lib was refreshing in so many ways; say, when I saw KS/TS holding hands, it felt like seeing that gesture for the first time ever. You know? Sorry, I can't explain myself well. Anyway, news. If you're LJers, you may want to know there's an active Kyung-soo/Tae-sub community there (there are over 100 members!). It's here. I co-mod it. You could say I'm shamelessly plugging the comm, but I swear I'm not here for that (I've been a mod for only a few weeks). Three users, myself included, have decided to recap every single ep of LiB, just the KyungTae bits and all the scenes related to our boys (we've posted 16 reviews so far. Barring a zombie apocalypse, we usually post thee reviews a week). Just thought you'd want to know. I assume not everyone feels like watching a 63 eps long tvshow if they're only interested in one storyline. And speaking of which, if you feel that way, this comm offers all of the KyungTae cuts (all the vids contains all the KyungTae scenes and the scenes relevant to their storyline) here. You can find all of the KyungTae-edited eps unsubbed there. Unfortunately only a few of them are subbed because SBS forced the Korean user who translated them and who also used to post gorgeous KyungTae MVs to lock her journal and so she doesn't share anything much anymore. Random gifs to cheer you up. You can find lots of gifs at the LJ's KyungTae_bl comm What else. Okay, info about the actors. The guy who plays Tae-sub is 송창의 SONG CHANG-UI (You may see his name spelled as Song Chang-ee or Song Chang-eui. Romanization can be tricky. I actually hate it. I like hangul better ♥). He's on dramawiki here and hancinema here. Dramabean's news about him[/url]. If you want more fannish content, I rec SCU's "official" thread on Soompi. You can find galleries dedicated to him on Soompi (just run a search there), on Asianfanatics here, Nate here, Naver here and Daum here (The image gallery is hidden somewhere there. Look for 이미지. Grr, Daum always breaks my brain and I'm too lazy to find it for you. Nate and Naver are way better imho) FYI, if you want to save his pics, you'll probably have to do some fiddling around with the Korean sites (Nate, Naver and Daum). Soompi and Asianfanatics require a login, but the registration is free. When he was cast as Tae-sub, he was definitely the more high-profile actor between him and Lee Sang-woo who's the guy who plays Kyung-soo. Both have played in a few movies and kdramas, but SCU is a well-known musical actor. Hedwig and the angry inch is quite popular in SK and many actors, famous and not so famous, played Hedwig; SCU's Hedwig is, as far as I know, one of the most loved one. (Please do NOT hotlink from my Photobucket account) I snagged the pics from, uh, Nate? I should check. His rendition of The origin of Love (ps: if you like Hedwig, also check out Oh Man-soek's version ♥♥♥♥♥. I lurve him as well) Sorry, can't find vids of them dressed up as Hedwig. Ah well. If you want more info, guys, dramabeans *points above* Or, well, check his official site and mini-hompi, if you guys can read Korean (the links are within the dramawiki's page) 이상우 LEE SANG-WOO plays Kyung-soo. As I said, he wasn't a newcomer when he was cast in LiB (he filmed a few dramas and movies with A-list Korean actors), but his profile was lower than SCU's, imho. He's a lot more popular now. \o/ His links General info: Dramawiki, HanCinema, DramabeansFannish love (info + pics): SoompiGalleries: Asianfanatics, Soompi, Nate, Naver, DaumOMG this took forever to write. I was about to go blind when I was adding all the links ;D
|
|
|
Post by Zathras on Dec 18, 2010 11:49:23 GMT -5
Thank you for your post, blueocean80 . I'm still watching the episodes as they are slowly translated (over at WithS2.com) and posted up on DramaCrazy.net. They're up to episode 57 so far (I wonder whether people are posting the latest translated clip before they should ). From what I've been able to gather, the show ended its run on November 7 with 63 total episodes? Do you know whether studios in SK do multiple seasons of shows like this? Or is that the end of it? The story of TaeSub and KyungSoo was very prominent early on, but it seems like they don't have much of their own to do in the later episodes. Still, it is nice that they are integrated with the other things going on in the family. When I started watching the show I focused on the guys, but as time went on I started paying more attention to the other characters and stories. (It didn't hurt that the only place I really watched was the full episodes posted to DramaCrazy ). For some reason I've found the character of ByungJun to be quite hilarious ;D ... not sure why . His brother ByungGul, on the other hand, is really quite a self-important, loudmouthed jerk. The grandmother/grandfather dynamic (did we ever learn their names?) is kind of interesting. In some ways it's sad she feels it's her lot in life to care for her ailing, selfish, somewhat-senile husband, despite the fact that she seems to largely despise him. It's too bad that (as of ep 57) he didn't really seem to figure out just how generous she was being (in my mind, anyway). The HoSub/YeonJoo romance was kind of cute. HoSub just comes across like a big kid to me ;D. The SooIn/JiHye relationship seems like kind of a stereotypical married relationship with the controlling wife and downtrodden (though increasingly upset) husband. And of course there's the exceedingly selfish ChoRong , though she did seem to have great troubles when DongGun wised up to her manipulations. DongGun's repeated attempts with ChoRong, and his upbeat attitude were kind of cute ;D. But what I found most interesting was the overall feel of the show, and some of the cultural aspects that shine through. I'm always a bit hesitant to draw strong conclusions about cultural norms from TV shows, but it's interesting to watch and ponder. The words and language that's used, especially the words used to refer to other people and their interrelationships, is different than other languages (like any of the Romance or Germanic languages, including English). I said once before, but I was surprised at how much the word "hyung" is used, and all the variations of it, and the different contexts and meanings. The consequence was that it took me quite a few episodes to figure out many of the characters' names, and how they were all related to each other. There are still a few that I haven't been able to figure out. Beyond that, some of the customs are different from what we see in the other shows around here (*cough* Germany *cough* ;D). I would have liked to see even a kiss between the guys, but the overall tone of the show seems very conservative. I can't say I'm not disappointed, but what they did show was nice. I think they do care for each other, even if it's not demonstrative on screen. The closest we got was at the end of episode 16 ;D.
|
|
|
Post by blueocean80 on Dec 18, 2010 14:02:22 GMT -5
Hi, zathras! Well, Dramacrazy -and generally speaking most of the sites that offer streams for subbed dramas- doesn't usually credit the original subbers and most of the times they do ignore what the subbers want. I have a couple of friends who volunteer for WITHS2 and from what I know, they're not that happy when streaming sites offer that kind of thing. I prefer downloading the RAWs from a few trusted sources (and if you want the urls, I'll PM them to you) and snagging the subs directly from the fansubbers' "official" pages. If you are in the US, which it looks like you are, you could try www.dramafever.com/: that's the only streaming website I trust. The dramafever guys have struck deals directly with the Korean networks and they are allowed to stream many dramas legally. The subs are either from known fansubbers who gave them permission to use them or huh, I think they're the subs the broadcasters gave them but I'm not sure (I'm fuzzy on the details because I'm in Europe and that website is for North Americans only). Another source you can trust is Viikii, now Viki.They, too, have struck many deals with Korean/Japanese/Chinese/Taiwanese broadcasters and the subs are provided by the users of the community itself. Subbing is a shared effort, you know? And subs usually come out quite fast. I still prefer relying on WITHS2 (I feel like a bad friend and a disloyal VIA if I switch to another group) and, soemtimes, on Haruharu. I'll tell you what I replied to someone who asked a similar question on the WITHS2 boards. That’s very rare. Like, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a second season? Except maybe High kick through the roof? There have been rumors that a few dramas would get a second season (Coffee Prince comes to mind) but most of the times they all fall through. There have been spinoffs, like Goong S which followed Goong (FYI, Goong S didn’t do so well) and these days Queen of Reversals is airing and it’s, um, not exactly a spinoff? I don’t even know what it is, to tell you the truth. Athena has just started and it’s a spinoff of Iris. Iris is also getting a sequel, a honest-to-god season 2 (IRIS 2) which is supposed to air sometime in October/November 2011. But these are just exceptions. I don’t think LiB will get a s2, not after it getting an extension, but hey, you never know. Maybe SBS will go the High kick way (High kick was a family drama just like Lib, but it was extremely popular and besides the sequel/spinoff hybrid thing I mentioned above, a few days ago another deal was closed and apparently there's going to be yet another High kick series, which should be season 3) I say don't hold your breath. Yes, that's a complain I heard often. Honestly? I'll be getting anything wherever I can. I'm not picky. I'm sad there wasn't much going on for our boys, but I'm still glad we got to still see them. For a while, I thought they were going to be shipped off to Japan or England and we wouldn't be able to see them and after the whole church debacle and all the tweets of the writer, I was seriously worried. Jun is my favoooooooorite character after Kyung-soo and Tae-sub and his love story with Ara too cute. OMG do you remember when he got completely plastered? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Ho-sub used to be my favorite character early on, but when he got together with Yeon-joo, the cute faded for me. He was adorable as he was trying to ignore her and then to woo her with semi-disastrous results, but IDK, he turned into this huge sap, which I usually don't mind, but since he completely ignored his sister (and their dynamics as siblings was one of my favorite things of the show), I was like meh, whyyyyy. Yes, Cho-rang has been irritating at times, but I understand where she was coming from. Don't get me started on Byung-keol, my least favorite character. And no, as far as I know, we didn't learn the names of grandpa and grandma Yang. There was no reason to know them. Calling them "grandfather" or "father" and "grandmother" and "mother" was enough. We never did get to see the elders interacting with other elders (say, friends or family) and only in that case we would have seen them using their names. Which brings me to the next point. Don't worry, that's what happens to all the viewers who are not Koreans and who suddenly find themselves addicted to kdramas. Kinship terms are a huuuuuuuuuuuuuge part of the Korean culture and one of the most interesting aspect of it, imho. It's one of the things I like the most about Korea. Dramabeans has a glossary that you might find very useful (they cover almost all the terms you'll ever hear in a kdrama). They also have an extended glossary here which delves deeper into a few keywords, such as oppa and noona (they haven't tackled "hyung" yet, but if you want, I can give you a few pointers? I assume you already got most of its meanings, though. Just let me know). A warning: those entries are spoilery for a number of kdramas (the writers usually talk about dramas that already aired, but considering you're new to kdramaland they WILL spoil you most of most famous kdramas like, say, Coffee Prince, which, btw, you may be interested in. It's basically the story of a girl who gets mistaken for a boy and since she really, really needs to work, she goes along with the lie. Her "boss", a rich spoiled brat who wants to avoid an arranged wedding, hires her to be his fake boyfriend and...hilarity and heartache ensue. FYI, that was my first drama and to this day, it's still at the top of my all-times-favorite kdrama list heee It's a must-watch! If you do watch this, it's absolutely necessary you know very well the meanings of hyung, dongsaeng, oppa and unni). Another interesting aspect of the Korean culture is related to the Korean language itself. You may or may not have noticed that Koreans have different kinds of speech levels ie polite levels. The difference between banmal, which is the informal language, and jondaemal, the formal language is yet another thing to look into (the extended glossary covers both). It totally changes the way you see and understand characters and how they relate to each other. When I started learning Korean, the differences between banmal and jondae blew my mind and I'm not kidding. Dude, trust me. What they did show onscreen? Was not at all conservative for their standards. Or rather, for the standards of national tv, on primetime, in a family drama aired on weekends. Showing two guys holding hands? Hugging? Strongly hinting they DO have sex? Kissing (sort of. Offscreen, but whatever) was extraordinary and a first. Now, if we're talking about movies, that's another thing altogether because K-movies can be quite graphical, not all of them are, but some are and.... I swear the first time I saw one, I was sooooooooo shocked. I was used to longing stares and shy touches or maybe some nice kissing that it didn't occur to think that the kmovies' sex scenes would be quite SO graphical. Actually, you know what? This kind of movie is usually rated for viewers no younger than 19 and I'm STILL convinced that Western movies rated the same way are a loooooooooooooot more vanilla. But maybe that's just me. BTW, there are a few gay-themed movies which fall into this category (there are not many, but I can come up with 2 off the top of my head. No regret and Frozen Flower though the latter has sooooooooooooo many het sex scenes and whatever, don't want to spoil them too much) and if you want to watch them, you have to be prepared for an emotional rollercoaster (forget happy romcom, yeah?). There are maaaaany maaaaany kmovies that tackle bromances and love stories between guys (The King and the clown comes to mind. I can list others if you want) but in a more platonic way and again, dude, kmovies are quite emotional and cna be so freakin' sad. Which is why I almost never watch them unless I'm certain they are romcoms. One of the cutest gay-themed short movies I've seen in recent years was actually Korean and I was sooo surprised. It's Just friends. So cute. Sorry, I couldn't find an English-subbed trailer. Whew, that was long. Sorry.
|
|
|
Post by Zathras on Dec 18, 2010 21:08:12 GMT -5
Unfortunately, dramafever.com doesn't have clips of this particular show, at least not that I can find. I figured out a while ago that the credit for translation on the clips at DramaCrazy.net goes to the wonderful folks at WithS2. I'm aware of their VIA program now, though haven't made any donations ... yet . Too bad there likely won't be any more of LiB, but I kind of suspected that was the case. I remember ;D. Talk about out-of-character for Jun. English doesn't have the formal/familiar language difference (I suspect it did at one point, but I've never studied old English dialects), but I have studied Spanish and German, which both have some distinction between formal and familiar means of addressing people (I'm not an expert by any means). As I've been watching LiB, I've been suspecting that the Korean language does that to an even greater degree. I'll have to read the links you posted some day (the posts are very long ). Hmm. I wonder how much of that is cultural. Most non-pornographic film companies in the US try to avoid the NC-17 rating ("no children below age 17") like the plague. They'll cut material (if they have to) to make it rated R ("restricted") instead. Now I'm curious how far films in Korea will go .
|
|
|
Post by blueocean80 on Dec 19, 2010 12:35:09 GMT -5
Have you checked Viikii? Sorry, I didn't check myself cos I'm all set with WITHS2. I prefer watching eps offline cos my connection is wonky and besides, the audio and video quality of the raws are higher than any file found at streaming sites. Plus, I watch eps multiple times. *coughs*
Jun is love. ♥♥♥♥♥
Yeah, it's the same with Italian and French, which both have formal/informal forms, but they're nowhere near as strong as Korean, imho. The thing is, that distinction is not limited to language alone and the way you address people, but also to the body language and a number of other things. You may have noticed that already, say, when a character is drinking a shot of soju with someone older than them.
Certainly, that's a factor. IDK, from my experience with k-movies/dramas, the distinction seemed fairly clean-cut to me: movies geared for a mature audience or movies with topics of particular interest, say, gay-themed movies, are for paying customers only (so people must go to the movie theater to access that kind of content) whereas movies and dramas with "safe" content are aired on regular tv. True, cable tv exists in SK, but I don't think it's as widespread as it's in the US, but maybe that's my impression.
|
|
|
Post by Zathras on Dec 19, 2010 21:01:01 GMT -5
Have you checked Viikii? Sorry, I didn't check myself cos I'm all set with WITHS2. I did check Viikii, but I don't see it there either. Yeah, I've noticed a little bit of the body language. For example, in episode 21 when Tae Sub and his father are having a drink in that hotel, Tae Sub turns his head away when he drinks but his father does not.
|
|
|
Post by blueocean80 on Dec 21, 2010 10:04:38 GMT -5
That's so weird. I thought I saw it on Viikii. Sorry. Yeah, that's one example. If you missed ep 7, watch it cos 1)it's oh so cute, 2)there's a scene that always cracks me up (well, there are several in that ep). KS has brought some wine in order to celebrate meeting Tae-sub's mother for the first time and there's a bit of an awkward moment cos they don't know who should serve the wine (usually guests shouldn't do that, but then again, there's an elder in the room so, as a sign of respect, someone else should serve it and also? The most common thing to do would be pouring wine for others and let others pour some for you and in that scene...well, you'l lsee)
|
|
|
Post by Zathras on Dec 21, 2010 11:14:26 GMT -5
I've seen that scene ;D
|
|
|
Post by blueocean80 on Dec 23, 2010 15:09:48 GMT -5
I loooove that ep. They keep grinning at each other and pretty much looking completely in love and nobody notices. *G* My favorite bit is when Min-jae tells KS that TS doesn't have many friends, KS says he's like that, too and TS is all, "you're worse than me" and akfdhkahsdakhds KS's reaction, *vbg* They're SO married! *fangirls*
|
|
|
Post by Zathras on Jan 16, 2011 11:38:29 GMT -5
In case anyone's interested, the last of the translated subtitles is finally up on WithS2 (the series finished last November in Korea). That's the source of the translations that people used on the clips over on DramaCrazy. I still haven't found any other source for the clips that I can see here in the US . WithS2 page: withs2.com/view/life-is-beautifulDramaCrazy page: www.dramacrazy.net/korean-drama/life-is-beautiful/I really laughed at a scene in episode 63 with the guys in a forest setting, if only because of the controversy in real life over them having wanted to film a scene in the church after Ho Sub and Yeon Joo's wedding. The dialog even hinted that it was supposed to be said back then ;D. Anyway, I was glad that, by the end, everybody in Tae Sub's family knew about him (except the grandfather, since he passed away) and they were very supportive (uncle Byung Gul notwithstanding ). For some reason, I even got the impression that the grandmother was happy at the end there when Tae Sub and Kyung Soo were saying goodbye. Even though nobody told her about TS and KS, I wonder if she really had guessed anyway - she's a sharp old lady ;D. It was kind of amusing that TS didn't know that she knew. Despite the lack of demonstrative physical affection on-screen (like we see on pretty much every other show on this board), I found the series enjoyable. I am a bit disappointed that they never even kissed on screen, but then there were only a handful of kisses among the hetero couples in the entire 63 episode series so it's not terribly surprising. At any rate, the show overall has a very different style than the other I've watched from the US and Europe, and it was interesting to see the different cultural and stylistic approaches to storytelling. If that kind of thing interests you, it's worth watching just from that standpoint. If not, I made notes of where all the scenes directly related to the guys are ;D.
|
|
|
Post by kevvoi on Sept 20, 2011 8:47:51 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by mikaila on Sept 25, 2011 2:24:01 GMT -5
Hi I tried to watch the videos on Tudou, but they don't work. And it happens only with these viedos because I tried to watch others and they work. Could someone up them on Megavideo?
|
|
|
Post by Zathras on Sept 25, 2011 10:45:18 GMT -5
Did you try either of the sources from the last two posts? The DramaCrazy.net page ( here) has the original full episodes, with versions that have English subtitles from the folks at WithS2. And kevvoi's post has a link to a YouTube page that looks like it took just the TS and KS scenes from those videos (so it's a lot shorter to watch). Looks like zezento has put up 31 parts so far (as of 4 days ago).
|
|
|
Post by mikaila on Sept 25, 2011 13:54:01 GMT -5
Yes i found the website where I can see the whole drama, but I want to see only the boys' bits. I now that zezento is posting these bits on youtube but I fear that they will be deleted like it happened before, so it would be awesome if someone could post them somewhere else too.
|
|
|
Post by kevvoi on Apr 9, 2012 18:16:18 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by kevvoi on Apr 27, 2012 11:18:32 GMT -5
|
|